Category Archives: weather

Higher-than-predicted marine waters, brought about in part by
recent weather conditions, have given us unexpected “King Tides” in
many areas of Puget Sound.

I noticed that the waters of Hood Canal seemed exceedingly high
this afternoon, as I drove along Seabeck Highway where the road
hugs the shoreline. The waters were not supposed to be this high,
according to tide tables developed by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, so I checked some actual levels
recorded at nearby locations.

High-water levels measured on the waterfronts in Seattle, Tacoma
and Port Townsend were nearly 1½ feet higher than what had been
predicted by NOAA for those areas. For example, in Seattle the
preliminary high-water level was listed at a tidal elevation of
12.98 feet at 12:54 p.m. today, compared to a predicted high tide
of 11.56 feet.

This is the season for King Tides, a name given to the highest
tides of the year. High tides, mostly generated by the alignment of
the sun and the moon, are predicted for Christmas Eve, rising
higher to the day after Christmas and then declining. But, as we’ve
seen this week, as well as on Thanksgiving Day, predicted high
tides can be dramatically boosted by heavy rains, low atmospheric
pressure and onshore winds.

As one can see by looking at observed
and predicted tidal levels in Seattle, the actual tidal level
has exceeded the predicted level more often than not over the past
30 days — and lately it has been higher by quite a lot (shown in
chart at bottom of this page). Actual levels are measured in real
time in only 14 places in Washington state. One can access the
charts from NOAA’s
Water Levels — Stations Selections page.

King Tides are promoted as an event by Washington Sea Grant and
the Washington Department of Ecology, because today’s extreme tides
provide a reference point for sea-level rise caused by climate
change. The highest tides of today will be seen more often in the
future, and even higher tides are coming. Check out the blog post
on
Water Ways from Jan. 3 of this year. See also the website
“Washington King Tides Program.”

Washington Sea Grant has posted a list of dates when high tides
are expected in various areas, called
King Tides Calendar. Sharing photos of high tides hitting the
shoreline is part of the adventure, so sign up for MyCoast to share your pictures or view
images posted by others, or download the cellphone app to make the
connection even easier.

The chart shows the actual
tidal water levels in Seattle (red) compared to the predicted
levels (blue). Click to go to NOAA’s website.Chart: NOAA

If you are hosting out-of-town visitors this Thanksgiving
weekend, it might be a good time to take them salmon-watching — or
go by yourself if you get the urge to see one of nature’s marvelous
phenomena.

Rainfall in Hansville. Blue
line shows current trend.Graph: Kitsap Public Utility District

Kitsap County’s Salmon Park on Chico Way near Golf Club Road
tops my list of places to watch salmon. Expect to see plenty of
dead fish as well as live ones, as we have apparently passed the
peak of the run.

Dogfish Creek near Poulsbo also has a fair number of chum at
this time, with a good viewing spot at the north end of Fish Park.
Gorst Creek and other streams in Sinclair Inlet are known for their
late runs of chum salmon, which are likely to be spotted right up
until Christmas at Otto Jarstad Park.

OK, I’ll admit that I used this line once in a story many years
ago when I first observed the Skokomish River overflowing its
banks. I was amazed at the number of chum salmon swimming through
farm fields and across pavement in the Skokomish Valley as they
tried to get back to their spawning grounds.

Despite extensive work in the Skokomish River estuary, the
waters still back up and fish still swim across roads during heavy
rains and floods.

I was not the first to bend the old joke to ask, “Why did the
salmon cross the road?” And I was definitely not the last, as two
new videos went viral the past few days, resulting in news reports
across the country. Hundreds of thousands of people must have been
surprised to see Puget Sound salmon skittering across the pavement
in a most unnatural way.

Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey have created an
“Earth-as-Art” collection of brilliant images from space, as seen
from Landsat satellites.

Icy Vortex // Image:
USGS, Landsat program

Some pictures of Earth formations are reminiscent of actual
paintings; some include familiar objects; and some are like
abstract creations. Some show the actual colors of earth, sea and
sky, while some of the colors are created with filters to highlight
natural colors or even to capture light beyond the visible
spectrum.

These images remind me of the LIDAR images created by the
Washington Department of Natural Resources, which I called works of
art in a blog post nearly a year ago.
See Water Ways, Dec. 11, 2017. I included images of Puget Sound
among some satellite photos posted previously. See
Water Ways, Sept.11, 2017.

We’ve just gone through one of the driest five-month periods on
record in Kitsap County, yet the total precipitation for entire
water year was fairly close to average.

Water year 2018, which ended Sunday, offers a superb example of
the extreme differences in precipitation from one part of the
Kitsap Peninsula to another:

In Hansville — at the north end of the peninsula — the total
rainfall for the year reached 35.2 inches, about 3.5 inches above
average.

In Silverdale — about midway from north to south — the total
rainfall was recorded as 43.1 inches, about 5 inches below
average.

In Holly — near the south end — the total rainfall came in at
82 inches, about 3.3 inches above average.

The graphs of precipitation for the three areas show how this
year’s rainfall tracked with the average rainfall through the
entire year. The orange line depicts accumulated rainfall for water
year 2018, while the pink line represents the average. Click on the
images to enlarge and get a better view.